Frank Denton: Salvation, inspiration and heroism

Fifteen-year-old Lakesha had been sexually abused by her stepfather for several years before she finally told someone the ugly secret that was destroying her life.

She was spending the night at a friend’s house on Habana Avenue on the Southside and opened up to her friend, who told her own mother, Khaliah Shakir. The next morning, two police officers woke Lakesha up.

Our crime reports include a depressing number of such cases — 142 sexual assaults or rapes of juveniles in Jacksonville in 2012 — and I suspect you are like me in really not wanting to read those stories.

But this one is very different. It is a story not just of survival, but of salvation and inspiration. And it has a remarkable hero you need to know — in fact, four heroes.

That morning, 23 years ago, while Lakesha rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, the first police officer, a woman, discouraged her accusations, noting that Lakesha had a newborn baby, by someone else. “She just basically told me that I was something like a hot mama. She looked at the fact that I had a baby and I was young and thought I was just being rebellious.”

But then the male officer, Victor Jefferson, came in, took over and validated Lakesha. “He said ‘I believe you, and he’ll never do that to you again.’ ”

I’d like to tell you that Lakesha’s nightmare ended there, but we all know that sexual abuse, especially of a child, can leave deep, painful, destructive aftereffects.

Her stepfather was arrested and spent some time in jail, but Lakesha had to leave home, at age 15 with a baby.

“Can you imagine? That’s when my life took a turn — depression, low self-esteem, promiscuity, all those things that affect you when you’re a victim. I just didn’t feel like anybody loved me. I was confused. I hated myself. I felt nasty that this had happened to me.”

Lakesha began skipping classes at Wolfson High School and finally was suspended for fighting and cursing teachers. For a time, she was homeless. “I was doing all sorts of things that were degrading to me. I started thinking about suicide. I hated myself so bad. I was so depressed.”

She and her baby — “the best thing that ever happened to me” — stayed around with friends and eventually were taken in by Shakir, another “guardian angel” who helped save Lakesha twice. She’s Hero No. 2.

And Lakesha watched how a friend of hers pulled himself out of the destructive lifestyle they shared. “He was bad like me, had some challenges in his life,” she said. “I saw how he changed his life, and I saw how people looked up at him.” When he won the Turnaround Achievement Award at Wolfson, she found a goal and started listening to mentors and counselors who were trying to help her.

Lakesha began to apply herself, at academics and basketball, and she began to see success for the first time in her life.

She was such a good athlete that she caught the eye of a coach, Deborah Pennick, who became Hero No. 3 by introducing Lakesha to spirituality and college.

“She invited me to church, a revival,” Lakesha said. “I figured God couldn’t be real, because I had experienced all this stuff. But I got on my knees and prayed, ‘Lord, if you’re real, take this broken-heartedness from me.’

“It was just immediate.” She snapped her fingers. “All those years of hurt and low self-esteem. I asked the Lord for peace, and peace came over me. No one else was there. I felt different, I smelled different. From that day, my life changed. I found a purpose, and from that day, my goal was to live out my purpose. The Lord told me my purpose was to serve, and doors opened up.”

She graduated from Wolfson with a 3.0 GPA and the homecoming and prom crowns. It is a point of pride for her that she won the Turnaround Achievement Award that her friend had won the year before. As the Times-Union reported, the award included her first car, a 1989 Pontiac LeMans.

Pennick recommended Lakesha to Lake County Community College to play basketball. “I wasn’t trying to go to college. I just wanted to prove people wrong about me.”

She did, and after two years at Lake County, she got a full scholarship to the University of Central Florida and graduated with a degree in criminal justice.

In 1999, through the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office minority sponsorship program, Lakesha Anderson became a police officer. “I wanted to become an officer so I could tell victims: ‘I believe you.’ ”

One day soon after she got her badge and uniform, she was leaving the station when she saw a patrol car with the name of the officer who had believed her all those years before, Victor Jefferson.

She nervously waited for him to come out, and when he didn’t, she went in and found him. “Excuse me,” she said to him. “Do you remember me from Habana Avenue? I gave him some details and said ‘I want to thank you.’

“His eyes filled up. He said, ‘I remember!’ We cried and we hugged. It shows how powerful officers are and how they can impact lives.”

Lakesha Anderson became a sergeant and had her own Jefferson impact in 2007 when, according to a Times-Union story, she kicked in a door and rescued a badly abused 2-month-old girl from a fire set by the baby’s berserk father.

“This job is just a ministry to me,” she said. “Every day, I’m trying to see how I can help someone. I always embrace the person. I want them to see I’m more than ‘the police.’ I want the person victimized to feel comfort. It’s not their fault.”

She is now Lakesha Burton, having married her “awesome husband,” Sheriff’s Office Chief Greg Burton. They have five children, including two from his earlier marriage.

Her story doesn’t end there.

Three years ago, she was to take the lieutenant test, which is given only every two years, but then she became pregnant. “I went into labor the day before the test. I told my husband if I have the baby before midnight, I’m taking the test — I had studied for it for a year. The baby was born at 11:57 p.m. The hospital wouldn’t release me, so I sneaked out to take the test.

“That’s how determined I was. That’s what the challenges early in my life have done for me — I’m very resilient. I turn negatives into positives.”

She passed the test and is now the second black female lieutenant in the Sheriff’s Office. She is the patrol daytime watch commander for the central zone that includes downtown, the east side and Gateway. She leads three squads with about 22 officers.

Even though Lakesha Burton is only 38, it has been a long journey from that traumatic morning on Habana Avenue.

“I’ve grown so much from it,” she said. “But there are things that affect me today. I’m very protective of my children. There are certain touches or sounds that will trigger something and take me back to those times. You heal, but you don’t forget.”

As a police commander, she is mindful of how far she has come. “I want to make sure officers treat people with dignity. If a prostitute says she’s been raped, she’s a rape victim, whatever her lifestyle. You never know what people have been through in their lives to get where they are.”

Surely by now you have figured out that Lt. Lakesha Burton is Hero No. 4.

Congratulations Lakesha. Its amazing what determination and will power to refuse to remain in a negative light of atmosphere. I myself was also a victim , been on my own since I was twelve, never been in trouble with the law. I believe i doing at least one good deed a day.

PS When are you going to run for Sheriff? I bet you have some amazing children too!

"Cowford" at least when Frank reposts an article, he seems to leave previous comments posted. Ron Littlepage on the other hand, seems to repost essentially the same article a bit later, but with posts omitted.